I've been gone a bit - pre-occupied as well because I was sick. But now I'm back, as the old German proverb says
"For a number of days the dog was sick, but now she's taking pictures again, thank God"
(slightly modified)

I was out this afternoon and saw this happening at the entrance of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
Gotta love it!

A predominantly white jury is not going to like Rachel Jeantel. Let's just be real here.
The 19-year-old Miami native is an easy target for obvious, yet shallow reasons. But let's not forget why she's actually on the stand in George Zimmerman's second degree murder trial. Rachel was the last person to speak to a living, breathing Trayvon Martin. The guilt, shame and sorrow she must feel is something most of us will never be able to comprehend. You could hear it in her voice, see it in her jittery body language. She is feeling the wrath of this highly publicized case.
Rachel was thrown head first into this murder story, unwillingly. And although she had repeatedly said she did not want to be a witness, did not even want to believe she was the last person Trayvon spoke to, Rachel took the stand for all the right reasons. She was asked to by the family of her deceased friend and feeling part of the burden for his death, she wanted to help.
Rachel was raw, emotional, aggressive and hostile, and she was unapologetically herself.
And if the 5 white jurors (excluding the 1 Latina) are like most white people I know, they are unfortunately not going to like Rachel. They won't understand her, especially not her defensive nature, and this will unfortunately work against her. Even though it shouldn't.
I can imagine George Zimmerman's defense is just hoping some of those 5 white jurors have some prejudices (as most people do), or hell, are even racist, because if they are, their tactic to make Rachel out to be less intelligent, rather than less credible than she actually is, might actually work.
Less intelligent and more confused.

Women vote in the US presidential election in Los Angeles, November 4, 2008. (Reuters/Lucy Nicholson)

No sooner had the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, after two hundred years of slavery and nearly 100 years of Jim Crow, than Southern conservatives, who failed to stop the law, began to attack it. South Carolina mounted the first constitutional challenge to the law only a month after it was enacted. President Nixon tried to weaken the law take the “monkey…off the backs off the South,” as did Presidents Ford in 1975 and Reagan in 1982. Every effort to gut the VRA failed. Each time the law’s constitutionality was challenged, in 1966, 1973, 1980 and 1999, the Supreme Court upheld the act. Every congressional reauthorization, in 1970, 1975, 1982 and 2006, made the law stronger, not weaker, in protecting voting rights. Each Congressional reauthorization was signed by a Republican president, cementing the bipartisan consensus supporting the VRA. “The Voting Rights Act became one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation’s history,” Justice Ginsburg wrote in her dissent today.

That consensus held until now, with the Roberts Court finding that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. Section 4 is how states are covered under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the provision which requires states with the worst history of voting discrimination—those who had a discriminatory voting device on the books and voter turnout of less than 50 percent in the 1964 election—to preclear their voting changes with the federal government. Without Section 4, there’s no Section 5. The most effective provision of the country’s most effective civil rights law is now dead until and unless Congress figures out a new way to cover states where voting discrimination is most prevalent that satisfies the Roberts Court.
snip:

BREAKING NEWS Monday, June 24, 2013 7:00 PM EDT
Senate Immigration Bill Collects Votes to Advance
The bipartisan push to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws took a major step forward Monday evening when the Senate endorsed a proposal to substantially bolster security along the nation’s southern borders as part of measure that would provide a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the country.
The 67-to-27 vote prevented any filibuster of the plan to devote roughly $30 billion to border enforcement measures, including nearly doubling the Border Patrol force to 40,000 agents from 21,000, and completing 700 miles of fencing. Opponents of the enhanced security questioned whether the steps would ever be taken and said that the legislation should require that the border be secure before undocumented immigrants could begin to seek legal status.
But the solid bipartisan support for the border security proposal crafted by two Republican senators, Bob Corker of Tennessee and John Hoeven of North Dakota, suggested that advocates of the overhaul had the votes needed to clear remaining procedural hurdles and pass the legislation, perhaps before legislators return home during the July 4 recess.

if it weren't cracked.
I've been busy with stuff - but today and yesterday - and a bit of tomorrow - I am taking some photography classes.
I've known that I don't know much.
But I did not know how vast and wide that gulf is.

Here's a photo that worked out OK today. Many of the others are too horrible to save.

HELL (The Borowitz Report)—Word that the News Corporation chief executive Rupert Murdoch has filed for divorce from his wife, Wendi Deng, came as a “total surprise” to longtime Murdoch confidant Satan, the Lord of the Underworld said today.

“I am totally blindsided by this,” Satan told reporters. “He and I talk every day.”
Citing his long history with the media titan, the Hound of Hell said, “We go way back. I gave him the idea for Fox News. I told him to hire Roger Ailes. That’s why this is such a shock.”
A frequent dining companion of the Murdochs, Satan said he “didn’t have a clue that they were having problems.”

“I’ve had dozens of dinners with them in the Hamptons,” he said. “Did they bicker? No more than other couples. But they seemed to be on the same page about all the important things, like creating corrupt media monopolies and buying politicians. I thought they were for keeps.”

Adding that he “cares deeply about his friends,” Satan said the news about the Murdochs had hit him especially hard: “I was just starting to get over the Putins.”
The Prince of Darkness said he first got word of the Murdoch divorce about an hour before the official announcement: “My banker at Goldman Sachs called and told me to sell my News Corp. stock right away.